1. Technical Field
The invention relates generally to a system for rapidly booting one or more application programs of a processing system to a prior operational state.
2. Related Art
Computers and microprocessor based control systems manage complex systems with a great degree of reliability. When employed in an embedded control format, such microprocessor based systems may be used to automatically execute complex tasks while providing a user interface which is comparatively simple.
One example of an industry in which users have begun to demand more complex environmental and entertainment services requiring computerized control systems to manage these services is the automobile industry. Automobile telematics systems may perform many functions, including recording the positions of the driver's seat and mirrors for different users, supporting entertainment applications such as broadcast radio, video games and playing movies, managing climate control systems such as heating and cooling systems, and providing Internet access, email and instant messaging services to passengers. A telematics system typically may provide a microprocessor, non-volatile memory, and I/O devices in the form of audio and/or visual devices, keyboards, or voice recognition systems.
Complex computer systems may take a great deal of time to “boot up.” “Booting up” is the process of putting the computer in an operating mode in which it is ready to execute a predetermined function. Primary boot up operations may include the loading and initialization of the operating system, while secondary boot up operations may include the loading and initialization of one or more application programs subsequent to the primary boot up. To decrease the amount of time needed to execute a primary boot operations, system parameters indicative of the overall state of the system are transferred from volatile memory to non-volatile memory before the system is shut down or otherwise enters a hibernation mode. On subsequent primary boot operations, the system parameters previously stored in the non-volatile memory may be accessed to more quickly restore the system to its prior operating state. Similar operations may be executed in the context of a secondary boot of an application. For example, the Solaris operating system uses a command, Dldump, that is used to write all memory related objects from an application to a non-volatile memory for subsequent restoration. Although these techniques represent improvements in primary and secondary boot technologies, they are still open to improvements.